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SimScale Update 01/2016: Thermomechanical Analysis

The first SimScale update of the year just rolled out enabling advanced thermomechanical analysis and a few other new simulation capabilities. Find the highlights of the latest release below.

Advanced Thermomechanical Analysis

We’ve seen a high demand for thermal and coupled thermomechanical simulations among SimScale users, which is why these capabilities were significantly enhanced with the latest platform update. A new analysis type enables in-depth studies of mechanical parts under thermal and mechanical loads such as transient heating/cooling, collapse due to fire exposure, thermal shocks, shrink fit and much more.

Advanced mechanical and thermal analysis features such as:

temperature dependent material data

powerful boundary conditions like follower pressure and remote force

frictional contact

dynamic effects

were combined into one streamlined simulation workflow. The animation above shows the temperature and stress distribution of a stop valve that undergoes a thermal shock due to hot fluid. The initial state shows the pre-stressed bolts followed by the high-temperature and high-pressure fluid entering the valve. Physical testing of such extreme conditions would be very expensive and time-consuming compared to virtual testing.

Another application of this type of thermomechanical analysis is shrink fitting. In the image below, the shrink fit between a tool and the tool holder is simulated and the resulting stresses within the connection analyzed. Check out the public project here.

Fan Boundary Condition for CFD

Fans are important elements in heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems that are regularly simulated on SimScale. Typical examples are data-center cooling, comfort factor analysis within rooms, or fresh air supply in parking garages or tunnels. The new fan boundary condition allows for more accurate representations of fans within such flow simulations. It can be used at both inlets and outlets to drive the flow in and out of the domain. The fan curve, which governs the relationship between pressure jump and flow rate can be explicitly specified via a table to accurately predict the impact on the surrounding air.

Community Improvements

Since the release of the Community 6 weeks ago, more than 2000 public projects have been created. They are a great resource for learning and reusing projects for your own purpose. Hundreds of new simulations are added each week.

We’re actively developing features that will allow you to search for the simulation content you’re looking for more quickly. In a first step, new sorting mechanisms were added that allow the user to sort public projects by:

# of views

# of likes

# of copies

Creation date

Modification date

Try them out in combination with the search field to see if there are other users working on applications similar to your own.

SimScale is the world's first cloud-based simulation platform, enabling you to perform CFD, FEA, or thermal analyses. Sign up for the 14-day free trial and join the community of 70 000 engineers and designers. No payment data required.

David Heiny

Co-founder and Managing Director at SimScale. Excited about HPC and CAE technology.